Intolerance is sweeping across Pakistan

In decades past, the town mullahs decried the use of megaphones during the call to prayer. Now they have embraced the technology in Pakistan. In every city the loud blare of the muezzin echoes throughout the streets, although they rarely call out in unison. For centuries Muslims have bickered over prayer times, and much else.

For the people of Gojra's Christian Colony, in rural Punjab, the mosque megaphones presented a more worrying proposition. "These are infidels, killing them is permitted," screamed one local imam from his mosques as, two weeks ago, a Muslim mob stormed the colony on hearing a rumour, later found to be false, that a Christian had desecrated a copy of the Qur'an. About a hundred homes were burned to the grown along with nine people, most of whom were burned alive in their dwellings.

Vulnerable minorities are often targeted as a result of petty grievances or property disputes, and Christian Colony residents believe the attack was sponsored by a local businessman keen to take their land. "There shouldn't be a double standard. In our churches and homes ... so many bibles have been burned," a local priest said. That principle holds true for those who perished, too.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan believes the attack was premeditated: "Witnesses said the attackers went about destroying Christians' houses in a very professional manner and seemed to be trained for carrying out such activities."

Members of Sipa-e-Sahaba, an outlawed Sunni extremist group that also targets Shias and Sunnis it considers apostate, are thought to be behind the attack. Heightening this violent drama, Sipa-e-Sahaba's leader Allama Ali Sher Hyderi was shot dead last week in his home town of Khairpur, northern Sindh, in what appears to be a reprisal killing.

Sipa-e-Sahaba is meant to be banned. But the Pakistan Ullema Council, a powerful mainstream religious body that is also hostile to Christians, Shias and some Sunni sects, condemned Hyderi's assassination while religious groups staged protests across the nation. There have been only muted protests for the Christians of Gojra while many self-confessed champions of the marginalised like Imran Khan have remained silent.

Ever since the forced "Islamisation" of Pakistan under former dictator Zia ul-Haq, fanatical Sunni religious groups have loudly and aggressively pushed an intolerant brand of Islam. Although they have consistently fared poorly in elections contested by major political parties or not massively rigged in their favour, they are a powerful lobby greatly feared by governments, the public and even the judiciary.

It would be unfair, however, to only blame religious groups for the spreading intolerance. "Sectarian conflict in Pakistan is the direct consequence of state policies of Islamisation and marginalisation of secular democratic forces," concludes an International Crisis Group report.

Under Zia, school textbooks were purged of any positive reference to minorities or Muslim traditions considered too pagan. Students were taught that Pakistan was a global vanguard of Sunni Islam forever threatened by Hindus, Jews and western imperialists. Pakistan's penal code was amended to make blasphemy against Islam, including desecration of the Qur'an, a crime under strict penalties including life imprisonment to death. The Hudood Ordinance left millions of victims of rape exposed to the new crime of adultery while the testimony of non-Muslims was judged to be half the value of a Muslim.

Zia apart, the Pakistan army's patronage of militancy inspired by chauvinist and xenophobic interpretation of Islam is well known. The Gojra attack occurred in the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party heartland. Even the clerics here pledge allegiance to the Sharif brothers. Elder sibling Nawaz is the federal opposition leader and, so say the polls, the most popular leader in the country. Shabaz, the younger Sharif, is Punjab's chief minister and a noted bureaucrat.

According to one source, federal intelligence agencies had warned the PML-N-controlled Punjab government that a militant group was expected to do an attack on minority communities, but it was ignored.

The Christians of Gojra don't vote for the PML-N but conservative middle class Muslims do. For years the party has been a bridge between politicised mainstream religious leaders and the formal political set-up. That linkage has its origins in Zia's sweeping Islamisation project.

Amid this sobering tale there are thin slivers of hope. Most of Gojra's Christians were given refuge from the mob by their Muslim neighbours. Perhaps more opportunistically, the ardently secular Muttahida Quami Movement was quick to provide relief and call for the assailants to be punished.

Pressed by the adverse publicity, both the Pakistan and Punjab governments have promised justice to the victims too. Islamabad says it will hold a judicial inquiry into the incident and push for reforms to the blasphemy laws.

But any significant repeal of these laws will be a daunting task. "Any government that takes on the project of amending these exploitative laws will have to confront this political Islamist lobby," noted former federal information minister and leading progressive politician Sherry Rehman. The Punjab government says it will provide compensation of up to 300,000 to 500,000 rupees, but victims say this is not sufficient recompense for the loss of lives and property.

There were no Pakistan flags fluttering in Gojra on Independence Day, only black ones hoisted on any structure that was lucky enough to survive the attack. "We're still waiting for our freedom, if this was our country this would not have happened," one Gojra resident told a news crew.

Only an active roll-back of Zia's Islamisation of the state will prevent Pakistan from continued communal disintegration.